Nine, actually, but who’s counting? I had considered titling this one “Try Not To Breathe”, but that would have given the game away immediately, and it’s never a good idea to start with the punchline, but I suppose you’ve worked it out for yourselves by now. But I may as well start at the very beginning as I’ve heard that it’s a very good place to start.
Tuesday of last week my wife went back to the gym for the first time since her very nasty ankle injury and her vertigo put her out of action. I was very pleased for her, as she had really enjoyed her workouts and it was doing her a great deal of good. On Thursday she was feeling crappy and so decided not to come to quiz night with me, as she didn’t want to be responsible for making anyone else sick. Seeing as one of our crowd is an octogenarian in far from great health, that made absolute sense and I put in her apologies.
By the time I got home, she’d had a call from her trainer to say that she’d tested positive for Covid and that as my wife hadn’t been wearing a mask during her workout, and even though they were close to an open garage size door, and the equipment was wiped down before she used it, she should get herself tested. Fan. Fucking. Tastic. So, rather than her usual Friday morning, she spent two hours at Urgent Care waiting to get a test. I’m pretty sure you can see the punchline from here, but on Saturday she received a call to say that her test was positive. Sen. Smegging. Sational.
Of course, this meant that I had to call work and let them know, and assume that I was also infected. I couldn’t go to work, and as I couldn’t get a test until Monday because my clinic doesn’t test on Sundays, I was put on sick leave pending the result. I mean, if being in contact with someone for ten minutes total over the course of eight hours is enough to have you go into quarantine, sharing a home with someone pretty much guarantees you’ve been exposed.
Thankfully, quarantine doesn’t count as sick leave, and I’d be paid, so I wasn’t really too concerned about the fallout, if any, of a positive result. You’d think I’d be happy to have some bonus time off, but being confined to home meant I couldn’t really take advantage of it, although I did get some reading time, as well as game time and was able to watch several episodes of “Kolchak”, my wife and son having bought me the DVDs for Christmas.
As my son is home from college, he was able to help us out by picking up some groceries for us. Here’s the funny thing: Despite having been on the sharp end of online shopping for over a year, I’d never used our service, so it was my first time as an online customer. Whether by accident or design, my manager shopped my order and my son picked it up, leaving it on our doorstep to avoid any direct contact.
On Wednesday I got my result. Negative. This surprised me more than a little, as I had nasal and throat congestion as well as borderline shortness of breath. Indeed, it was these symptoms that had elicited the quarantine order from Management. I’m pretty sure the test was a false negative, as it may have been done too soon after exposure, so I’m going to put myself in the infected group, if you don’t mind.
Naturally, I let them know as soon as I could, but seeing as the mandatory period is five days, and my work week ends on Thursday, I had no illusions about having to go in the next day. I talked with one of the high-ups and he was mainly concerned with me coming back to work before I was truly ready. To be honest, I was pretty much back to normal, my congestion having pretty much cleared up. Not so my wife, who had been mainlining throat lozenges for seven days straight and hacking up lungs left, right and centre.
Thankfully she is now very much on the mend, if rather tired due to her coughing at night and the need to let the dog out. They’re not called “The Wee Hours” for nothing, if you get my drift (see “Diamond Dogs).
All this enforced leisure has brought back memories of being unemployed and having to find things to do to occupy my time. Admittedly it’s easier now as we have television, the Xbox and each other, but I won’t be too disappointed to go back to work for my regular shift on Sunday, although no doubt I will be less than thrilled about two consecutive closing shifts.
It could all have been a lot worse, to be honest, and I’m glad for the fact that we are both triple jabbed. The thing that gets me is that my wife has been working from home since early in the pandemic while I’ve been around hundreds of people every day, yet she is the one who got Covid. I’m going to consider this a bullet avoided, take a deep breath and get back into the swing. All while wearing a mask, of course.